Spain’s Paula Badosa will take on Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic in the first round of the Olympics men’s singles on Sunday, July 25. Get the live streaming options of this Paula Badosa v Kristina Mladenovic match along with its preview, head to head, and tips here.
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Paula Badosa v Kristina Mladenovic Preview
There’s no bigger stage for athletes to shine and bring pride and glory for their homelands than the Olympics and these are the very goals that rising Spanish tennis star Paula Badosa and Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic will have their eyes on as they meet for what promises to be a mouth-watering first-round clash in Tokyo on Saturday.
Currently ranked 29th in singles, Badosa, apart from drawing parallels with five-time Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova for a similar playing style as well as on-court mannerisms, is also one of the top-rated women’s tennis stars in the current crop.
And when one throws in the kind of form she has been in this season and soaring levels of adrenaline and motivation on the biggest stage that there is in sports, it’s a cocktail that might prove too hot to handle for Mladenovic.
Currently sitting 63rd in singles, the Frenchwoman has struggled this season, especially on hard court which is the where all the Olympic matches are to be played.
Barring a run to the third round at this year’s Australian Open and a quarterfinal-finish at Lyon, Mladenovic hasn’t had fruitful returns from hard court events this year.
She fell to Jil Teichmann of Switzerland in the third round at the Adelaide International and also couldn’t progress beyond Round 3 in Dubai and St. Petersburg. She also couldn’t clear the qualifiers for the main draw at the Miami Open.
Their only head-to-head meeting came in the quarter-final at Lyon this year where the Spaniard prevailed in three sets.
Badosa took the opening set in the French city but the Mladenovic made a stirring fightback to take the Spaniard to a tiebreak in the second and win it 7-5.
However, she couldn’t handle the Spaniard’s resurgence in the deciding set, going down 2-6.
While the Frenchwoman couldn’t turn the result in his favour, she would have taken a lot of heart from the way she took the contest to a deciding set and made a match out of it.
It was how the match panned out that would give the Frenchwoman belief going into the first-round Olympic clash. Current form might favour the Spaniard, but Mladenovic would know she can settle scores with Badosa if she can play the percentages better.
Irrespective of the result in their previous match, expect the two start as equals.
Badosa v Mladenovic Tip
Three sets in the match: 6/4 (bet365)
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The 2021 Tokyo Olympics will be played from July 24.. You can watch & bet on these matches here. Get your latest premium tennis predictions here.
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